Achieving consistency in mobile databases through localization in PRO-MOTION

There is great need and potential for traditional transaction support in a mobile computing environment. However owing to the inherent limitations of mobile computing, we need to augment the well-developed techniques of database management systems with new approaches. We focus on the challenge of assuring data consistency. Our approach of localization is to reformulate global constraints so as to enhance the autonomy of the mobile hosts. We show how this approach unifies techniques of maintaining replicated data with methods of enforcing polynomial inequalities. We also discuss how localization can be implemented in PRO-MOTION, a flexible infrastructure for transaction processing in a mobile environment.